My Good Helper

Andrew has decided that he is big enough to carry Eliza. (Ahhh!) And so sometimes he does, like when I told Liza it was time for a diaper change, Andrew promptly picked her up to carry her to me. Liza laughed the entire way!

Somehow we'll have to teach her how not to egg on her brother...

Our Little Music Lover

If you watch Liza much where music is involved, you will probably see her conducting or dancing. She loves music.

She conducted a lot during "I Believe in Christ" at the end of the morning session of General Conference. Of course, once I brought out the camera it was much more hit and miss. (Somehow the camera is way more interesting.) But I did find it interesting that during the first few verses she conducted with one hand. Then here on the last verse when they sang fortissimo, she conducted with two hands (briefly). Oh & each time the chorus started, she started conducting! She does pay attention.

We sure love singing around her & hope her love of good music continues.

We're Ready!

We're all excited to watch General Conference! The kids made their own tent this year.

It's one of our most favorite days of the year! You can watch it here!

Dallas

Rick got to go to Dallas this week for work & some pleasure. He went out a day early so he could go to the Monday Night Football Cowboys/Redskins game with his brother, Ryan. It's too bad it wasn't that great of a game, but at least it was close the entire game and they got to see a cool stadium.

They also got to go to the Dallas Temple. That was the temple I would go to as a youth & it's just like the one he would also go to as a youth (Boise). It's nice that he has been able to get to different temples since the Denver temple has been closed for the last six weeks (he got to go to the Washington DC temple a couple weeks ago).

First Grade Treasure Hunt

This afternoon we got to go to Joseph's class for a Treasure Hunt to celebrate the end of their Map Unit. It was fun watching them use a compass & follow the directions to find all of the clues. The clues eventually led them to the cafeteria where they had ice cream.

Once we were done in there we went back to the classroom & the kids made pirate eye patches. Joseph really liked pretending to be a pirate. And we sure loved the fun activities! (And it was also fun for Rick to come & surprise him!)

She's the Cutest!

And I love her, TONS!! And I love how Lexie puts outfits together. Hearts and flowers do go together, right?

At least the colors do match.

The Walker

We've had this walker since Lexie was a baby & Rick suggested getting it out for Liza. We finally did yesterday & she took to it right away. She loves it.

And the kids love hovering around her, too.

Homework

I've decided this week that 3rd grade is a lot harder now than it was when I was in 3rd grade. And that my creativity skills for spelling word sentences (for practice tests for Lexie) are not up to par this week. Nonetheless, I will try to come up with more exciting sentences for words like trilingual, quadrangle, heptathlon, pentathlon, decagon, and hexapod than just using the number of sides or events, etc. I'm pretty good with the bicycle, bikini, triplet, pentagon and the like, but coming up with a good variety this week is not my forte. (That's what happens when there are 20 spelling words.) I guess she'll just get really good at knowing all the definitions of these words and if they are Latin or Greek prefixes. Did you know that the prefixes oct- & penta- are both? Who knew?

And to think her homework was the hard one this week, oh wait, maybe not. (And not necessarily hard, just lots of busy work.) Joseph had to make tally marks (in groups of 5s) & he decided to use a whole paper for it: 1,080. And yes, I did verify that one. And today Joseph got to write a page about "I wish I were a..." and he said, "I don't want to be anything but me. Can I just write that and be done?" Not the easiest task to convince him to write about being something else-even about what he would like to be when he grows up. He finally decided on a dolphin trainer. At least he doesn't want to be a guitar like Andrew does.

Ah, homework. It always makes for a fun evening. (No, it really does. I'm so grateful the kids are doing so well in school and love to learn! It's really awesome!)

Playing the Piano

Lexie is loving playing the piano with Eliza.

And Eliza is loving it, too.

Growing Spaghetti

Andrew planted some seeds at Joy School on Wednesday. This morning he noticed that they were starting to sprout. When we asked him what we thought would grow he excitedly answered, "I'm growing spaghetti!" Since the sprouts do look like spaghetti noodles it does make sense.

I guess we'll have to wait and see if that's really what he's growing.

Boy's Reading Night

Rick got to go to Boy's Reading Night at the school tonight with Joseph. They called it "Rough, Tough, & Funny Stuff." (It was a bummer that Cheryl & Lexie couldn't go to the girl's one last week because Rick was out of town-hopefully next year.) They started off with mad-lib type stories around the campfire, followed by reading time in the library. Joseph picked books about Paul Bunyan & Daniel Boone as well as an Aesop's Fables book for them to read. Then it was off to the gym for "The Brave Knight's Challenge" (an obstacle course). Joseph really enjoyed it, especially swinging on the rope.

Then we went to the cafeteria & built log cabins out of pretzels, graham crackers, & frosting.

They also got their picture taken & Joseph was so excited that they got an action shot of him swinging an ax.

It was a fun night for the boys & are so glad that the school goes out of their way to create fun opportunities for kids & their parents to enjoy together.

First Steps

Eliza took her first steps today! She's been balancing for quite awhile, but hasn't really tried to walk too much. But this afternoon she found lots of reasons to try!

Which is a good thing, so we could try to take some pictures of her standing & walking. It didn't go so well, but she did think it was a funny little game.

(Rick even put her other sock on her for this picture but you can't even see it. Oh well.)

It was fun that the kids were all home so they could all see her do it because they were super excited! She also is a champ at going up the stairs. All week long she's climbed them & been so proud. We're still working on the coming down part (gratefully she hasn't fallen yet) but she likes going up much more so it may take a bit longer to really teach her.